LIFE INTERRUPTED

 Have you ever been on a path with a definite goal and plan for how to fulfill those goals when life throws you a curve ball?  NO---well hold on to your hat--it will come.  While recently having lunch with a long time friend, she told me the story of a huge curved ball coming her way.  After a long a joy filled marriage of over fifty years, she quite unexpectedly lost her husband to the dreaded virus.  Their marriage was filled with serving God in many capacities. We could never count how many lives they touched in a powerful way for The Kingdom.  If anyone ever should have lived to rock on the front porch together it was this couple.  Just as she thought he had turned the corner and they were headed home from the hospital, in the course of a few hours, her husband was gone.  She was left reeling from the loss. 

It has been over a year, and she has survived by clinging to God with her fingertips.  A year of being alone after decades of being side by side has not been easy.  She always felt they were truly as one and her identity was tied up in being his "Helpmate", his wife.  The were a prime example of being stuck together at the hip and seldom apart.  Now she is having to figure out who she is without him.  For all you ponders out there, that is a BIG question--

Slowly God is revealing who she is --who she is in Christ as an individual---without the identity of being a couple.  At some point we must consider who we are when all is stripped away.  She is seeking and I have total faith that God will use her in BIG ways for His glory and good purpose.  Would she  have ever thought about this if this untimely-unexpected day had not come?  We do not know---but she is not stuck in the mire of grief--but walking the path of grief with the purpose of being open to what God has next.

Priscilla Shirer put my mind on high alert recently with this statement

“Believing that life interruptions—divine interventions—are a privilege"

Hang with me!  God certainly did not want my friend to lose her much beloved husband.  He is walking this path of grief closely by her side.  He does want her to have faith that this interruption in the path she anticipated can still be used for His Good Purpose.  He loves her dearly and His plans for her in this different season of being a widow will be as mighty and as fruitful as all those years of a blessed marriage.  

So "Fear Not" He will faithfully be with you, He has plans for you, He will use you for His glory and good purposes--even when we think all is lost---there is more to come---the sun will come out tomorrow---all is right with God.  

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, 

which God prepared beforehand, 

that we should walk in them."

Ephesians 2:10